The invention relates generally to call centers or other call processing systems in which voice Calls, e-mails, faxes, voice messages, text messages, Internet service requests or other types of Communications are distributed among a number of service agents for handling.
Call centers distribute calls and other types of communications to available call-handling Service agents in accordance with various predetermined criteria. In existing systems, the criteria for handling a call are often programmable by the operator of the system via a capability known as Call vectoring. Typically, when the system detects that an agent has become available to handle a call, the system identifies the call-handling skills of the agent, usually in some order of priority, and Delivers to the agent the longest-waiting call that matches the agent""s highest-priority skill. Most Conventional call distribution techniques generally focus on being xe2x80x9cfairxe2x80x9d to callers and agents. This Fairness is reflected by the standard first-in, first-out call queuing and most-idle-agent call Assignment process. The above-noted skills-based queuing improves upon this basic process in that it allows each agent to be placed into a number of different service categories based on the skill types supported by that agent.
The above-described conventional call centers may also be capable of communicating with customers via e-mail. Outbound e-mail from such a call center may include both reactive e-mail, e.g., answers to questions the customer has sent in, and proactive e-mail, e.g., notification of available products or services, changing interest rates, free seminars, etc. A recipient of an e-mail message from a call center may respond to that e-mail via a return e-mail, or may decide to place a call to the call center. A significant drawback of conventional call centers is that such centers generally do not incorporate knowledge of an e-mail message recently sent to a customer in the voice announcements or other types of voice prompting that the customer hears when calling subsequent to receipt of the e-mail message.
It is therefore apparent that a need exists for improved techniques for generating voice prompts for callers accessing a call center, such that the information provided to those callers can be more appropriately tailored to their needs than would otherwise be possible using conventional techniques.
The invention modifies voice announcements or other types of voice prompting in a call center based on prior e-mail messages or other non-telephonic communications with callers. In the illustrative embodiment, information regarding at least one previous non-telephonic communication with a given caller is stored in a database or other memory accessible to a call center. The previous non-telephonic communication may be, e.g., a proactive e-mail, facsimile or mail notification previously sent by the call center to the caller without any corresponding request from the caller, or a reactive e-mail, facsimile or mail notification sent by the call center to the caller in response to a particular caller request. When the given caller places a subsequent call to the call center, the call center retrieves the stored information for that caller, and selects voice prompts for the caller based at least in part on the e-mails or other non-telephonic communications previously sent to the caller. The call is then routed to an appropriately-skilled agent based at least in part on a response of the caller to the voice prompt. Additional information relating to the previous non-telephonic communication, e.g., a copy or summary of the communication, maybe transmitted to the agent that receives the call.
Advantageously, the invention allows a call center to incorporate knowledge of e-mails or other non-telephonic communications recently sent to a customer or other caller in selecting the voice announcements or other types of voice prompting that the customer hears when making a subsequent call to that call center. The information provided to customers can thus be more appropriately tailored to their needs than would otherwise be possible using conventional techniques. Moreover, the invention also allows the call center to be more responsive to customers, provides market information regarding how frequently customers respond to e-mail notification offers, reduces the amount of time a customer must spend in listening to voice prompts, provides a more exact matching of customer need to agent skill, and provides more useful information to an agent handling a voice call. These and other features and advantages of the present invention will become more apparent from the accompanying drawings and the following detailed description.